Blessed and Cursed

Luke 6:17-26

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In this world, almost everything is transactional. If you want to have good things happen to you, you need to do good things for others. Sometimes, this is referred to as, “I’ll scratch your back, and you’ll scratch mine” and other times, people call this tit-for-tat exchange quid pro quo. Something is given in exchange for something received. This kind of bartering kindness, favors, gifts, time, compliments, and so many other things is how we’re used to living. Children are often taught the golden rule: “Treat others the way you would like to be treated.” In general, that seems like good advice. But that’s not how God relates to you. If God worked in a tit-for-tat way, it would make sense that rich people were loved by God and that God supported them because of what they did for Him, while those who suffered were not loved by God. That way, you could look at someone’s blessings or lack of blessings and use that as a measure of how much God loved them. Our human logic would say that God loves the rich and that the rich love God, and that God doesn’t love the poor and the poor don’t love God. Then, you could simply look at someone’s bank account, their car, or the size of their house and know how much God loves them.

Jesus’ words to the disciples on the mountain show a different way that God relates to people. Jesus says that the poor, the hungry, the mourners, and those who are hated are blessed. But they sure don’t look blessed! They look downtrodden, suffering, and not very successful. They look like losers. That’s why it’s important to distinguish “blessings” like wealth, status, security, popularity, and stability from “being blessed” which is a reality that comes from a relationship with God. The poor, the hungry, the mourners, and the persecuted are blessed by God, no matter what the measures of bank accounts, popularity, and stability would show. God says that those who believe in Him are blessed, no matter what. The Lord Jesus has taken on flesh to care for the poor, the hungry, the mourners, and the persecuted. Jesus personifies these people in His ministry, even as He has no where to lay His head and as the needs of Him and His disciples are met by generous women. He hungered in the wilderness when He fasted, and He mourned the death of His friend Lazarus and the hostility of Jerusalem against Him and His Father. He was persecuted by the crowds and the leaders of Jerusalem. The Lord of all became one with the poor, the hungry, the mourning, and the persecuted to bring the blessing of God to them.

Jesus came down from heaven and took on flesh. He came down to meet the lowly where they are, and He blessed them. They didn’t look blessed, but they were because they were with Jesus. That’s the truth, but it looks odd to us. This isn’t just true when we hear Jesus teaching the crowds. We look at the world around us and think that people who have it all together are blessed, and people who are suffering are suffering because of their own fault. You’re probably familiar with the statement, “God helps those who help themselves.” You might hear that that’s in the Bible, even though it isn’t. It is in ancient Greek philosophy, in Aesop’s Fables, and Benjamin Franklin printed it in Poor Richard’s Almanac. It’s also a confession of how people think the world works. If you work hard and try hard and do holy things, God will bless you. And those are lazy slugs or who hurt the people around them, God doesn’t bless them and their lives won’t be as good. Yet, that’s not what Jesus said. Jesus came to the poor and the hungry and the mourning and the persecuted and He stated that they are blessed, even when their lives look like mess. When things aren’t going well, those who believe in Jesus are still blessed.

Jesus even goes a step further. Those who don’t live in faith and who seem to have their lives together, those whose bellies are full and who laugh now and who are popular and favored by society without faith are cursed. That doesn’t mean that everyone who has plenty to eat or who is in good humor is cursed - but it does mean that if you place your faith and confidence and hope in material goods, satisfaction, and popularity and reject the grace of God, you have much to fear! This sermon of Jesus calls you to take stock of yourself. Do you think of yourself as blessed? Do you have everything you need? If so, where does it come from?

In the midst of the parts of your life that are out of control, like the things that you don’t have together, the financial struggles that you try not to think about, the relationships that are broken - especially the ones that are broken because you’re a Christian, the grief and heartache that you have when you live in this world and see how broken and contrary to God’s goodness this creation is, receive the blessing of Jesus. Christianity is not a religion for people who have it together, but it is a religion for those who are broken, suffering, heartbroken, and rejected. If you think you have it together and that you don’t need a Savior, or only need a Savior for a few things, Jesus calls you to be honest and repent. As a broken sinner, you have no hope apart from the grace of God. If you think you have it all together, or even partially together, apart from the grace of God, you’re flat wrong.

Martin Luther wrote, “he deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross. A theology of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theology of the cross calls the thing what it actually is.” (Heidelburg Disputation, Theses 20 and 21) Sinners are called to see the glory of God, not in splendor, but in the gracious suffering and death of Jesus. When a Christian focuses on the goodness that they have and how well their life is going, Luther called that a “theology of glory.” That’s a dangerous temptation of the devil and the sinful nature. It’s so tempting to say, “Since things are going well for me, God loves me.” Instead, Luther focuses Christians on the way things really are, “the theology of the cross” where all goodness and hope is focused on Jesus, the Savior who blesses the world by His suffering and death. In this world, Christians don’t always have everything together. The Church doesn’t always look successful. If your measure of how things are going is centered on the peace, stability, and external success of a Christian’s life or of the Church, you will be disappointed.

We theologians of the cross gather and honestly confess that we are truly poor, miserable sinners. Our only hope is that the perfect and holy God took on flesh to bless His people, to bless us. Not only does He stand on a mountain and speak of blessings, but He was lifted high on a cross to die, and then left an empty tomb to bless you. God in the flesh instituted the water of a baptism for the washing away of sin, and He sends His forgiveness into your ears. He gives His body and blood for you to eat and drink for the forgiveness of your sins. He blesses you, not because you’re so good, but because He is good. His goodness endures forever, and He gives that goodness to you.

Does your life sometimes look like a mess? Blame your sin and your sinfulness. Does the sinful world reject you, the Church, and the Savior you believe in? Sure, but that doesn’t remove God’s grace from you. Blessed are you when things don’t seem to be going well, because Jesus has come to bless you. He gathers you under His cross to live in honest repentance and faith, confessing that He is the Lord who gives you every blessing. Amen.